ROADTRIP TO SEE GREAT GRANDMA HANSEN

2/4 - Today we took a trip to Pocatello to visit my Grandma Hansen. She moved to Pocatello when my parents left on their mission so that she could be closer to my Aunt Jeannie and have help while my dad was away. It is easily over a 3 hour drive each way to Pocatello, which is why I came to Boise armed for the road trip with both of our travel DVD players. They came in VERY handy. My rental car was a Ford Expedition, which had seating for 8 comfortably. Ang and her 3 kids joined us for the drive. Ethan and McKinley sat on the back seat with one DVD player, and Sage, River and Brynn sat in the middle seat with theother one. Genius. They were so good the entire drive. We followed my parents and Sarah who were in the other car in our caravan. When we got there, my adorable Grandma had been waiting in the lobby the entire morning for us to arrive. I'm pretty sure that's a good indication that she was thrilled to have us there. ( : She's as sweet and spunky as ever - and she's still got a great sense of humor, which was refreshing. We all went to lunch at Applebee's (thanks for lunch Mom and Dad), and then went back to Grandma's place where we had a visit from Aunt Jeannie and Uncle Fred. It was great to see them.

My kids have had a few opportunities to spend time with their Great Grandma Hansen - but not nearly enough time to know how special she really is. Thankfully, my kids were charming today - and Grandma always mentions how she loves their sparkly eyes. I am hoping that we'll have another opportunity to see her again real soon. She turns 90 this year, so I've got to take advantage of spending every moment possible.

The drive home seemed to pass faster than the drive to Pocatello (for me anyway), but the kids were exhausted and about a

half hour from home they were in meltdown mode.

(I took a couple pictures on our drive home to try and capture the love of the

roadtrip...without looking - for safety purposes of course). When we finally got out of the car - it was game on. The kids were running through Gramma and Grampa's house, so happy to be free again. What a great day.